Cerulean and Saffron
by chossytoss
Summary: They come from two different worlds and think like two different people, but their lives are an eternal parallel, like sand and water, midnight and dawn. And in the end it matters what they have, not what they've lost. Lengthy one-shot. Tiva ish.


**Disclaimer: **NCIS or characters/things associated with it do not belong to meeee.

_Hey everyone, this is pretty much what the summary says. Another piece I couldn't get out of my head. Excited for more of season 8! Enjoy!_

* * *

On the morning of her twenty-second birthday, she gets a phone call.

It has taken one year to track them down, one year to find their names. To find their homes. To find out their habits, their favorite restaurants, the mosques they frequented. It took one year to find out every single piece of information about their lives, past or present. Everything she needed to be able to predict the next move before it happens.

One year since her beloved Tali became a casualty for their cause.

She'd be lying, completely and utterly lying, if she said this wasn't about revenge. But no one dares to call her on it, because just as everyone in Mossad knows not to mess with Director David, everyone especially knows not to fuck with his daughter. Because when Ziva David has her mind set on something, when she has that look of fight and fire in her tinted mahogany irises, it's best for everyone to stay away.

So the operation gets the immediate go-ahead, and she is not questioned after that.

And no one wonders if after a year of this, she would even stop if she _was_ questioned. Because the answer to that was clear.

One year, and now she finally has them cornered.

Perhaps they don't realize every move they made has been tracked, perhaps they are not worried about any reprisal after the amount of time that's passed (or that their actions even warranted reprisals), but either way they are stupid enough to all be gathered in one building. Working on something or celebrating something or deliberating about something, she doesn't know. But with every fiber of her being she doesn't care, doesn't think twice, because she is staked outside their hovel and all she needs is the phone call.

And that morning, as the blazing sun moves across the sky unawares, she gets it.

Moves into the house with the stealth of a predator, and the image is so true and powerful in that moment when she walks she emanates only lethal beauty and dangerously feline grace. The black metal of the silencer attached to the barrel of her gun does not glint in the sunlight, and her hands don't sweat against the grip of her weapon. She feels fear, but it's the kind that turns into adrenaline and echoes of pure instinct.

Because she is both a trained professional and a grieving sister, and the combination is enough to drop anyone.

Rounding a corner of an empty corridor, she hears the harsh tones of their voices from a room up ahead. She presses herself against the rough edge of the wall and waits, heart hammering with excitement, eyes steeled with anticipation.

She can't move until the voice in her ear gives her the final green light, so she waits.

Breathes.

Thinks.

It is a strange way to celebrate life, surrounded by death. And picturing how soon all four of them will be nothing more than corpses littered on the floor from wounds dealt by her hand, she suddenly feels so young.

But so tired.

And misses Tali more than anything.

She stands ready against the wall, waiting for her chance to rid herself of the terrible burden and the guilt. The pressure of hating that it's not _her_ that's lying cold six feet under. Waiting for the chance to take their lives so she can move on with her own.

A voice sounds in her head.

And she is four steps away from more than just a felony.

* * *

The day after his twenty-second birthday, he graduates from Ohio State.

He isn't the most noteworthy of scholars and his degree is not a motherlode of untapped opportunity and success, but he is glad to have made it to where he is. Proud of himself for being able to wear the cap and gown and have the courage to take the next step.

But he, forever the secretive doubter, knows his feeling of elation will soon be outlived. Thinks that going home will only speed the inevitable disappointment.

His father misses most of the ceremony thanks to the long and traffic-heavy commute he has to make from the apartment of his mistress or his girlfriend or his fuckbuddy or whoever the hell he is "sneaking" around with these days.

He could pretend to be disappointed just to milk the guilt trip, but in all honesty, in the pit of his stomach, he doesn't really give a shit. After twenty-two years there really isn't much sting left.

Not bitter, just honest.

His mother used to say things like that all the time. She would understand, if she were there. But she too, didn't get the chance to see her son on one of his best days - though she deserved to be there more than her husband.

Not in the hospital. Not dying from an illness that can barely be treated, let alone cured.

It's not quite hanging over his head and they don't talk about it much, but they all know she is running out of time. Small emotional progressions are dwarfed by the medical evidence that she is getting worse every day, and she has been confined to a hospital bed for months.

Anthony DiNozzo Jr. and Sr. are both in the car after almost everyone has cleared out from the after-ceremony mingling, and they are already on their way to the hospital when Tony gets a call.

Her condition has taken a rapid turn for the worse.

In the waiting room, his father sits with a lined face of stoicism and a strong cup of coffee as he tells his son that he can visit her first if he likes.

And like that, with the flash of selfish fear that sparks in his father's eyes, he feels physically sickened and rises from his chair so fast that he can barely even get a nod out before stalking away and down towards a room he knows by heart.

Sees the nurses around him, sees the closed doors and the saddened families, and to God that he never turns out like the man that gave him his name.

Outside the door to her room, he stops. Hesitates. Feels a wave of shame for being who he was, for being away and having the time of his life while the only member of his family he felt a real connection to was watching hers fall apart.

Waits.

Prays for the chance to make things right. Knows it will never come.

He prays.

And he is four steps away from a heartbreak.

* * *

She loses her first fight in the dark thickness of a dry July nightfall.

In all senses of the word, she had always been a survivor. Whether it was bullets, knives, or even a nasty case of pneumonia as a toddler, Ziva David always came out on top. Anyone that watched her train or had first-hand experience with her natural athleticism knows.

There is a spark of energy to her that makes her that much stronger.

Certainly in some sparring sessions she had been overcome, but when she was in the field and up against a wall of danger, she didn't make mistakes. Not when it mattered more than anything else.

She never expected to be subdued by her own brother.

It is late, very late, when she comes home from some stupid bar to their shared summer apartment to find him in the living room alone, lights turned down and bottle of vodka lying open on the table – he'd refused her invite that night and ignored her calls only to do this?

Drunk, and already emotionally defensive from the terrible argument she'd had with her father earlier, she loses control.

It starts with blunt questioning, accusatory mahogany eyes piercing into the man on the couch.

_What are you doing? Why didn't you pick up your phone?_

Turns into yelling, a lot of it, and Ari rises from his seat as she shouts and says things before she can think about them.

_Why the fuck did you leave after her funeral? Can't you even pretend to care about our family?  
_

It ends with a vicious slap to the face, and Ziva stumbles and barely catches herself. Triggered to retaliate and enraged by the sudden violence, she lunges out with punches that come all too naturally.

Given her intoxication she is easily blocked, and Ari twists her arms behind her back and forces her into a headlock, keeping her in place as she furiously struggled against his grip. Still yelling at him.

Eventually he throws her to the ground, throws her off him. Angrily retreats to somewhere unknown, ignoring her glare. The hate (it scares them both) in her eyes.

When he is gone, she is still on the floor. She does not move as she cries from a grief that she, and she alone, felt responsible for.

Minutes pass, maybe more.

She feels cheated and ashamed as she lies where he left her, and she can't remember the last time she felt this moisture staining her face or the salty taste of her own tears. Her memory is stuck on her dead mother and sister, who would both be disappointed in everything that had just happened if they were still alive to witness it.

She turns her head away from the ceiling for no apparent reason at all, and she is still crying.

Still on the floor.

Tries to breathe.

When he returns, she can sense his shadowy outline before she sees him, and instinctively she curls away from him as he silently kneels down, lifts her torso and pulls her into an awkward embrace. There is a softness to his touch that she had not felt since she was a small child.

Holds her against him, speaks to her in a quiet lull. Whispers, almost begs her to stop crying. That whatever it is, whatever it _was_, that it's not her fault.

He helps her get back on her feet, leads her in the direction of her bedroom. He gently leaves her standing in front of her bed, which suddenly feels foreign and out of place to her. She doesn't like looking at it, doesn't like the invasive feeling, so she turns around.

Only to find the room empty.

The soft fabric of the sheets rise up to meet her and she still just tries to breathe.

Thinks, again.

She manages to stand again, intending to go and talk to him without so much as an idea as to what she is going to say. She'd said too much already.

Torn, she waits in the middle between her bed and her door. Can't think, because thinking is tiresome and useless. But she feels it all the same. Feels it echoing in the silence that captured her where she stood.

Finds she has forgiven him for something he never apologized for.

And she is three steps away from realizing her brother is not who he used to be.

* * *

He loses his first fight on a frozen February morning in the dead of winter.

After a few months of being a detective in Baltimore, this is definitely not the first time he's been called out of the warmth of his (rarely empty) bed to investigate the leftover crimes from the night before.

Sometimes it's the elderly neighbors who don't realize their car has been stolen until morning, sometimes it's the junkie still strung out on crack that wakes up somewhere they shouldn't be, and sometimes it's the furious owner of a recently vandalized store.

Today?

It's murder.

As he stands in the filthy alley crawling with law enforcement, his insides freeze from more than just the cold.

The body?

The sister of a domestic violence victim that he had been trying to work with for the past two months.

_Shit_.

The hand holding his coffee feels dead and out of place, and as he tries to push away the sinking feeling, all he can see is the seeping crimson blood trail leading right towards his feet. It stains some of surrounding snow and turns it pink, giving the entire scene a soft hue that so contrasts the grisly nature of whatever had transpired in the middle of the night.

He squats closer to the dead woman, and as he gently turns her face over (a face that so resembles someone else) to reveal the other side. Bruised, swollen, and innocent all the same.

Above him, people mutter things like _raped_ and _sending a message_.

Something heavy and sickening is stirred up in his stomach, and he rises to his feet with a determination that has no pinpoint source. Quickly, and with an air of focus that does not usually come to mind when his colleagues think of DiNozzo, he retreats from the crime scene.

Spits out a harried excuse about needing to process something at the precinct, and no one calls him on his lie because they all feel whatever tension is stiffening the space between them.

He pays little attention to the roads as they blur past his window in shades of white and gray. Pays little attention to the hammering of his heart in his chest, because he has no time to think - and that is pointless anyway.

She answers the door at the second knock, and from the look of apprehension and confusion, it is clear she is expecting someone else. But her husband isn't home at the moment, and he glares at the faded bruise around her cheekbone.

Misinterpreting his anger she takes a fearful step back, but he doesn't apologize because what he is about to tell her would outweigh anything else.

Tentatively she lets him in, hesitant of hesitation. Fearful of his fear.

Tony doesn't wait for her to start talking, doesn't try to avoid the subject any more than he already has. Just tells her – her sister is dead.

He'd dealt with a lot of grieving witnesses in his career, but he feels more connected to this one as if he saw it coming but wasn't expecting it at the same time. She clings to him as she sobs and bleeds with sudden despair, and he doesn't do anything but let her do it.

Doesn't say anything.

Just breathes.

When she pulls away, she can see in his blazing green eyes that he has not said what he really came here to say. Dutifully and with the perfect amount of emotional persuasion, he gives her his lecture. Offers his support because she _needs_ it.

But she fights him, fights him with all of her excuses and all of her hidden pain and all of the pride that had been stored away and oppressed for so long.

He is her scapegoat; she is his damsel in distress.

And he doesn't give up.

_He killed her, he's going to kill you too. If you don't let me help, you'll be buried right next to her._

But neither does she.

Her rage is potent and fuelled by desperation, and before he can see it coming she is punching his chest and shoving him backwards and flailing all over the place because she just wants him _out_. Tells him that he is no better than husband, demanding things and hounding her.

Just get _out_.

It stings, and he can only react idly as she pushes him out the open door and onto the snowy steps below.

Stands in shock as the door is slammed in his face, and whatever had just happened or the taunting possibility of whatever might happen was over.

It was over.

The air is cold, biting at his face. He was done. He couldn't do anything about it.

And he is three steps away from realizing he has yet to do something worth fighting for.

* * *

Five months before her twenty-seventh birthday, she watches uncertainly near the bullpen of NCIS.

She had been to America several times before this trip, but given the circumstances she was unlikely to reflect on those times. Or reflect on anything at all.

Since she boarded the plane in Tel Aviv she hasn't thought much at all, a calming technique she learned when she was still training to be a Mossad operative. The clearer the mind, the easier it was to focus on the task at hand.

The easier it was to just _do_.

Trained as she was, something gnawed at the pit of her stomach.

_Ari_.

Somehow he's gotten into trouble with their ally, and he is going to need her help even if he won't admit it. And from what she could infer from his dossier and their phone calls, he was _definitely_ going to need it if he was to convince this Agent Gibbs of his innocence.

And he _was _innocent.

Her brother was here to do his job as a Hamas informant, and those duties did not include arbitrarily murdering American agents.

Would he throw his life away for that?

Shame creeps up on her as the thought lingers, but she wouldn't be in this situation, _they_ wouldn't be in this situation if everything was perfectly clear.

So she hesitates, waits and watches as the man at the desk – DiNozzo? – finishes talking to…whoever he was talking to. She could've sworn she heard him say the word _Kate_, but that desk is very clearly empty and that smile is definitely _not_ a smile that should be associated with a person tha—

He scrambles around stupidly as he realizes he is being watched.

Ziva smirks and counters his little comments with her own as her mask slips back into place and any misgivings were tucked neatly away and stored for later (later, when she will sit alone and wonder if she was distracted by her affections for her only real family).

The man says something else, and the present confronts her like the semi-playful challenge in his eyes.

Men like DiNozzo were easy to manipulate – pay enough attention to their masculinity and their ego and whatever is desired is revealed soon enough. Give more than you take and eventually they do the work for you.

Like hand-to-hand. Anticipate and tire out the opponent.

From her position of _slouching provocatively_ in the chair, she thinks maybe it's working or beginning to work. Sh_e_ isn't necessarily the bait and he certainly doesn't qualify as her target, but she will need to be able to use him, so to speak, if this is going to work.

Until he says something that warms her core and chills her bones.

_I'd wish you luck, but I want the bastard dead too._

And she holds her breath.

Something is wrong. Her doubt creeps, threatens to strangle and pull her down.

Thinks, as she sees the spark of green, that maybe she is too late already.

And she is two steps away from changing more than her mind.

* * *

Two months before his thirty-fifth birthday, he waits uncertainly in the bullpen of NCIS.

Truthfully, he isn't sure what he feels, because the clusterfuck of shock and grief and anger and guilt churns in his gut relentlessly and he, Anthony DiNozzo, is such a person of guarded and already wounded nature that it's so much easier to just….stop.

Not to think. Not to feel.

Smile for the camera and shove it away for later when he can punch and curse and just _hurt_ all he wants. Smirk for the memory of Kate because it feels right to say that's what she would've wanted – the internal banter he shares with her almost makes him forget.

_DiNozzo!_

Almost.

Vaguely he is aware that someone is watching him and his skin tingles unnaturally, immediately snapping him out of his headspace, enjoyable and slightly wrong as it was.

It becomes clear, what with the accent and the clothing and the (exotic?) features that this new woman is not American, and his brain jumps from country to country and makes a thousand tiny little questions before she finally introduces herself.

Ziva David – Israeli then.

He supposes he has three guesses, but he only needs one to figure out what she's doing so far away from home, so he draws it out and lightly flirts and subtly challenges in true DiNozzo fashion. And it wasn't all for none – she _was_ beautiful, behind the scarf and the cargo pants.

But she's looking at him like she has already figure him out, and in that moment he feels nothing but defensive pride for his murdered partner. Murdered by the person this Officer David is trying to clear.

It doesn't matter what this woman says, it doesn't matter if he gets the order to back off, and it doesn't matter if there is entire goddamn _mountain_ of evidence pointing to another killer. One thing, out of all the things that had been messing with his brain lately, he knew.

Haswari was _not_ innocent. And Caitlin Todd did not deserve to die.

_I'd wish you luck, but I want the bastard dead too._

And for the smallest of seconds, something tragic flashes across the Israeli's face, something infinitely wrong and beautifully sad. He stops.

Holds his breath.

Wonders if he has been blindsided by something entirely different than the whizz of a full metal jacket and blood on his face (too bad, because the look is gone before he can even think to look twice).

He has work to do, and an epic chip on his shoulder, but the uncertainty lingers and resonates with dulled haze.

Something is wrong.

Tries to erase it from memory, but something is wrong with those pensive mahogany eyes, that twinge of pain.

She only watches him.

And he is two steps away from the rest of his life.

* * *

In the bright afternoon sun of a cloudless November weekend, they do not wait for a phone call.

The kidnapped child of a female petty officer raped and murder cannot wait, and from their strategic positions on either side of the front porch, the screaming voice of a frightened girl is more than enough clearance to pursue.

They had been sent to question the suspect, but their objective instantly changed upon seeing and hearing the evidence of a struggle.

Back-up isn't an option. They literally _cannot_ wait.

Tony takes the front door first, weapon raised purposefully and eyes more than watchful for signs of the very clear danger that awaits them. Ziva follows close behind, going left when he goes right, watching when he moves, moving when he watches.

Time has passed and things have happened, but this is their game. _This_ is their perfection.

Seamlessly they clear the first few rooms before movement from the backyard catches their eye.

Their kidnapper, a volatile and military-hating piece of shit, is standing panicky in the middle of the grass, thick bicep snaked around the crying little girl and gun waving around at every little sound. They take their chance at his temporary confusion, revealing themselves from behind the back door, weapons raised and ready.

Whether out of survivalist fear or malice, he ignores their warnings and fires right away.

Tony, closer to the shooter and more of an immediate target than Ziva, throws himself behind the shed with an ungraceful landing and is temporarily stunned by the suddenness and the physical rush.

It's maybe two seconds later before Ziva retaliates with deadly accuracy, ending the man's life instantly with a double-tap to the heart (he always shoots three times, but she has never needed that kind of reassurance). The girl goes with him as he is thrown backwards, but she is back on her feet and hysterically moving away from him so fast that Ziva has to physically grab her to calm her down.

It isn't until the girl starts shaking furiously and pointing with a bloody hand and yelling through tears that the two NCIS agents realize their mistake.

They didn't bring back-up. But _he_ did.

Two men, packing serious heat and emanating a pure threat, emerge quickly and out of nowhere from the side of the house, obviously drawn out by the sound of gunfire. Tony hurriedly rises to his feet and joins his partner as she instinctively and without hesitation throws the child to the ground and tells her to run.

Even as she disobeys and watches in horror from the grass several yards behind them, Tony thinks of one thing.

_Why the fuck didn't they think to bring vests?_

No time for an answer as the firefight erupts into a reverberation of flashes and bangs, and he can hear nothing but the hammering of his heart as he takes one to the stomach and the grass comes up to meet him with viridian fury.

His partner yells, shouts something he can't hear and the intensity increases.

Shots are fired and she feels no fear and she is out bullets and everyone is dead and – Ziva collapses.

_Fuck._

She is _on_ _fire_ with pain, curled into the ground beneath her as the blood seeps and pools and stains everything deep crimson. She can see and touch the two wounds in her chest and thigh, but then, she can't feel her shoulder either and just like that two has become three.

She has never, _ever _felt like this.

Can't move from the awkward position she is twisted in, limbs bent and one arm draped loosely over her body. Can't move as the silent agony surges through her veins and burns everything it touches and pulses through her like the life that's leaving her.

It hurts too much to cry.

Suddenly she's shaking, shaking furiously out of control and as the little girl clings to her and screams and cries and touches her face fearfully, she coughs and stained maroon spills from her mouth.

At the dissonance of anguished sounds, Tony half-picks himself up off the spot where he'd fallen, one hand clutching the open wound (wounds?) in his abdomen as he slowly drags himself to where his partner is sprawled.

It is very hard to see, and he is woozy even as he crawls.

Tries to tell the girl to stop screaming, to call 911, to get help somehow. But the words don't come and she just runs away somewhere and his only thought is how his chest is beating to his need to get to Ziva.

_Needs_ to help her.

He hovers over her upper body, one hand still holding his own stomach together and the other hand gripping her undamaged thigh as he simultaneously tries to support himself and get her to react to his presence - but thick brown eyes are unfocused and glassy, and still she trembles as more blood stains her lips.

_Shock_.

_Fucking shock_.

Fear resonates through his clouded mind and he moves his hand to turn her face towards him, and as her fading eyes make contact with his, he half-whispers, half-chokes out her name (he doesn't realize she is not the only one coughing up blood).

_Please._

He doesn't say anything because he physically and mentally can't find the words, and he knows. Knows that one way or another, everything is too late.

No memory of when this happened, but Ziva's sweaty hand is clutching his, and together they can pretend that their shared energy means at least one of them will make it (but he was never that good at lying to her, was he?)

_Please_.

Sirens wail in the distance, and the cries from the little girl filter in and out of his dulled senses. Other people might be yelling too, but it is very hard to focus on anything other than the physical.

Thinks – it's their mutual silence that says the most.

He grips her palm tightly.

The glow of the golden sun streaks flawlessly across their bodies, and underneath there is only the softness of the earth and the green of the grass padded below them. Cold from their skin creates little warmth, and as he falls back down again he can taste the calm and the sweetness of the salt on his tongue.

Barely feels it, but she squeezes lightly and he can't return it. Sounds fade in the distance. Someone cries for them.

Still too late.

She is close to losing the battle she has been fighting since day one, and he is close to falling and never getting back up.

_Breathe_.

But they are just one step away from each other.

* * *

_Thank you for reading everyone! I know I have yet to write something where someone doesn't die - maybe I'll try humor next :) Enjoy your weekend and please leave a review!_


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